1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connection device and a connection method for connecting device manufacturing processing apparatuses that are used for manufacturing devices, and to a program, a device manufacturing processing system, an exposure apparatus and an exposure method, as well as to a measurement and inspection apparatus and a measurement and inspection method.
2. Description of Related Art
Semiconductor devices, liquid crystal display devices, image pickup devices (such as charge coupled devices (CCD) and the like) thin film magnetic heads, and other devices are manufactured by performing various types of processing on a substrate using a device manufacturing processing apparatus. Processing performed by the device manufacturing processing apparatus on a substrate includes, for example, thin film formation processing, photolithographic processing, and impurity dispersion processing and the like. There is also processing to measure and inspect a pattern formed on a substrate that has undergone these processings.
In the aforementioned thin film formation processing, film formation processing is performed in which a thin film is formed on a substrate using, for example, a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) apparatus which is a type of device manufacturing processing apparatus. In the aforementioned photolithographic processing, exposure processing is performed in which a predetermined pattern is transferred onto a substrate using an exposure apparatus which is a type of device manufacturing processing apparatus. In the aforementioned pattern measurement and inspection processing, the line width of a pattern formed on a substrate is measured or, alternatively, defects in a pattern formed on a substrate are inspected using, for example, a measurement and inspection apparatus which is a type of device manufacturing processing apparatus.
Generally, a network such as a local area network (LAN) is set up in a device manufacturing plant. Various device manufacturing processing apparatuses and a host computer that controls these apparatuses are mutually connected through this network. The host computer controls operations of the device manufacturing processing apparatuses by sending control signals to the device manufacturing processing apparatuses via the network. As a result, various processings are performed on the aforementioned substrate in a predetermined sequence resulting in a device being manufactured. Note that the above described contents are known public technologies and do not include any prior art document information requiring to be disclosed.
When, however, the aforementioned device manufacturing processing apparatuses perform a particular processing, there are cases when information used by other device manufacturing processing apparatuses, or information showing processing results obtained by other device manufacturing processing apparatuses is required. For example, when the line width and the like of a pattern formed on a substrate that has been exposed using the aforementioned exposure apparatus are measured using the aforementioned measurement and inspection apparatus, information showing the pattern that should have been formed on the substrate and information showing the kind of conditions in which the substrate was exposed are required.
A number of manufacturers produce device manufacturing processing apparatuses and there is no standardization of the information formats used in the device manufacturing processing apparatuses. Moreover, when transferring information between device manufacturing processing apparatuses, it is necessary to use identical communication control information (i.e., communication messages) and communication procedures (i.e., communication protocols) between communicating device manufacturing processing apparatuses, however, these are also not standardized. As a result, conventionally, if information used by other device manufacturing processing apparatuses or information obtained by other device manufacturing processing apparatuses becomes necessary while particular processing is being performed by a particular device manufacturing processing apparatus, an operator has to manually acquire individual items of information that are needed from the other device manufacturing processing apparatuses, and to manually execute of conversion of the information. Consequently, the problem arises that information is not effectively used between device manufacturing processing apparatuses.